Live data from Hacker News

Coinbase’s chief product officer will leave with a $105M payday

dlnews.com

301–310 of 391 posts

Re: Coinbase’s chief product officer will leave with a $105M payday

#301
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This philosophy of praising exploitation is actually one of the things I liked least about America and one of the things I found most refreshing when I emigrated. It's pervasive through American society that pulling the wool over the eyes of shadowy entities (large corporations, the government etc...) is a virtue but every time it's done it pulls a lot of money out of the hands of people that could use it more and fu…

Would say in all seriousness while nodding at your comment that America was founded on exploitation, not just of natives and Africans but of future waves of immigrants as well, etc, and of the idea of the supremacy of the owner class (within which there was some relative, legally enshrined equality). The history of America is literally one of enabling experimentation and innovation in exploitation, of the framing tha…

> America was founded on exploitation, not just of natives and ...

I believe these criticisms are true of essentially everywhere on earth. How much of Germany was French for a time or a vassal state of this one lord or another? Africa, the continent that invented slavery still enslaves people to this day. The Native Americans themselves faught with one another for land and treasure. Going back far enough, we cro magnons stole neanderthal land.

The United States didn't pop into existence in 1776 bringing with it some sort absolute barbarity that previously never existed, it's the other way around, the world was pretty backward and barbaric until the Americans got around to fixing it.

Re: Coinbase’s chief product officer will leave with a $105M payday

#302

I'm always intrigued at people's carriers and where exactly the inflection point was. Looking at Surojit's career, it went something like this: BS in CS at Kharagput, something like a US T2 university MS in CS at Buffalo, something like a T2 univeristy, Spend some years at IBM and Oracle as a developer/senior developer 200k/year ? MIT Sloan MBA T1 world class PM/Senior PM at Symantec for a year 200-300k/year? Head of…

I've worked with Surojit; he was an absolute superstar. He rose through the ranks on the basis of mountains of backbreaking and incredibly impactful work.

Re: Coinbase’s chief product officer will leave with a $105M payday

#303
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This philosophy of praising exploitation is actually one of the things I liked least about America and one of the things I found most refreshing when I emigrated. It's pervasive through American society that pulling the wool over the eyes of shadowy entities (large corporations, the government etc...) is a virtue but every time it's done it pulls a lot of money out of the hands of people that could use it more and fu…

It’s not pervasive. Pound yourself in the face with sand everyday and you’ll think there’s sand everywhere. There are 100s of millions of people in the US.

The largest financial crime in the US pretty much every year is wage theft. Wage theft isn't the grand larceny of millions - it's small business owners shaving tens or hundreds of dollars off the paychecks of people who are too powerless to object and accept the mistreatment because it keeps them out of poverty.

This is an issue from the top to the bottom.

We romanticize it when it's punching up (like at a crypto company that's probably been responsible for bankrupting a whole lot of suckers) but accepting it as a virtue also lets all those terrible bosses bask in the glory of how "keen" they're being by shaving off a bit extra for the retirement fund but punching down.

Re: Coinbase’s chief product officer will leave with a $105M payday

#304

Yes, because he got stock as part of his compensation package. Last year it was worth more, but it's still worth a lot. If the product hadn't been successful, it would have been worth nothing. It's not a mystery at all.

> If the product hadn't been successful, it would have been worth nothing. It's not a mystery at all. The stock is down -84.99% from IPO, seems like so far (accordingly shareholders and the financial market), the product is indeed not very successful because if it was, the price would go up, not down. So he did a poor job, and now when sold his part of it, he got $105M.

The entire market is down. Sounds like every product person everywhere is doing a bad job, then.

Re: Coinbase’s chief product officer will leave with a $105M payday

#305
post #302

I'm always intrigued at people's carriers and where exactly the inflection point was. Looking at Surojit's career, it went something like this: BS in CS at Kharagput, something like a US T2 university MS in CS at Buffalo, something like a T2 univeristy, Spend some years at IBM and Oracle as a developer/senior developer 200k/year ? MIT Sloan MBA T1 world class PM/Senior PM at Symantec for a year 200-300k/year? Head of…

I've worked with Surojit; he was an absolute superstar. He rose through the ranks on the basis of mountains of backbreaking and incredibly impactful work.

>basis of mountains of backbreaking and incredibly impactful work.

This is the kind of BS MBAs say to each other.

Re: Coinbase’s chief product officer will leave with a $105M payday

#306
post #175
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This philosophy of praising exploitation is actually one of the things I liked least about America and one of the things I found most refreshing when I emigrated. It's pervasive through American society that pulling the wool over the eyes of shadowy entities (large corporations, the government etc...) is a virtue but every time it's done it pulls a lot of money out of the hands of people that could use it more and fu…

There's two ways to succeed (oversimplification): being conniving and being smart. In an environment like the USA (where many of the world's smartest tend to flock and extreme wealth is relatively achievable), being conniving is rarer than being smart, so that's what people value.

For me there are two worlds:

- The world of Competition: Domination by action until one reaches a point of coldness that one loses oneself creating a "dark night of the soul" bringing change

- The world of Love: All efforts are aligned to create well being by avoiding harm of oneself and others.

If you are in the world of Competition, you will see the world in terms of black and white, gain and loss. Even my statement will be seen as a fool's position. One has to make a living in the world, even at the expense of others.

If you are in the world of Love, you will see the service you provide to others is an asset and you don't have to think about "Making it in the world", harming others at you own benefit because the world provides for you exactly what you need and you some how escape all of the consequences of others you have chosen the path of competition.

Which ever side you choose, will be the world you create for yourself and others. Right now the world of competition dominates, but it won't always be that way. Eventually we will all come-around, to love :D

Natural laws are neither cruel or kind. The are absolutely just. The cruelty of [competition] is a passing phase of evolution. - James Allen "The Competitive Laws & The Law Of Love"

Re: Coinbase’s chief product officer will leave with a $105M payday

#307
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an insult to baloney - at least baloney has the intrinsic value wherein it can be metabolized into calories.

It's especially insulting not to spell it correctly. Bologna.

Meaning number (2)

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/baloney

I happen to be from Italy, btw. And hate bologna.

(The sausage, or whatever it is, not the city)

Re: Coinbase’s chief product officer will leave with a $105M payday

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally I agree but this is crypto. Crypto is 100% zero-sum or negative-sum. The whole space is predicated on trying to take money from other participants rather than actually creating value. Creating at best the illusion of value is the goal. This guy nailed it. It's not like he took $100M from an orphanage or something.

This guy was a part of creating that negative sum game in the first place. He shouldn’t be celebrated.

If Alex makes $100M selling middle eastern despots tech to track and dismember journalists, Bob makes $100M with his new tech to inject adverts into our dreams, Charlie makes $100M by selling the taxpayer fighter jets that don't work and charging to fix them, Doris makes $100M by offering high-interest payday loans to desperate financially illiterate people, Eric makes $100M getting people addicted to his prescription opioids, Freya makes $100M by buying up property then paying politicians to block new construction, Grace makes $100M by getting a bailout from the government and spending it on exec bonuses, Harry makes $100M by running a for-profit prison that makes sure every inmate re-offends, Iris makes $100M by getting some chump venture capitalists to pay her that, and James makes $100M by persuading rich fools to pay that much for ape NFTs, why shouldn't we celebrate the fact James and Iris's actions are relatively less destructive than the others?

Re: Coinbase’s chief product officer will leave with a $105M payday

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A needed dip in the bubble and all of the sudden HN goes from market capitalist to left leaning. This person sold their stock, the time for employees to complain was when he was given this equity a couple of years ago.

Nope. They can also complain now. And forevermore if they want. None of us, you included, is obligated to protect grifters from the criticism of people who suffer while they walk away laughing.

And they look like jealous fools. Who got conned, exactly?

Re: Coinbase’s chief product officer will leave with a $105M payday

#310

I'm always intrigued at people's carriers and where exactly the inflection point was. Looking at Surojit's career, it went something like this: BS in CS at Kharagput, something like a US T2 university MS in CS at Buffalo, something like a T2 univeristy, Spend some years at IBM and Oracle as a developer/senior developer 200k/year ? MIT Sloan MBA T1 world class PM/Senior PM at Symantec for a year 200-300k/year? Head of…

I'm pretty much convinced that the inflection point is "Director" at a FAANG or "VP" at a smaller company. Once you get to that point, it's pretty much impossible to fail downward. Worker bees rise up in level when they succeed (or the economy is good) and fall down in level when they fail (or the economy is bad). But, I've never heard of a Director or VP or anyone from the "executive class" getting a downgrade when…

It's more about having the "fuck you" money. Once you reach this level, you typically have about $3-5M in various assets, so you don't have to work in order to keep paying your bills. You may want to work to buy that next supercar or yacht, but you don't have to.

So, if you are out of luck, you postpone that $5M waterfront summer home purchase, go sit on some board for symbolic money, sniff around, and eventually join some hot startup when you and your buddies found another investor cow to milk.

Not having to commit your time to a shitty offer in order to pay your bills right now makes a killing.

Post reply on HN